Four Spartans of the Post Apocalypse, Part Two
by M306117
Summary: En route to DC, Fireteam Kilo encounters their biggest enemy yet: nature. Stopped by floodwaters in a rundown Missouri town the four Spartans find themselves drawn into conflict against a macabre cult that worships a dark god, though cultists aren't the only threats on the horizon. (On hiatus)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

 **1107 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

The radscorpion scurried along on its numerous legs with a winding pattern, drifting one way and then the next as new things kept occupying its simplistic mind, latching onto whatever was shiny enough or moved even the slightest to catch its attention to either chew on it or grasp the item with an oversized pincer, before invariably losing interest and moving on. As it did, the radscorpion had a feeling that it was being watched by something, or as close to a feeling as can be achieved in the mind of a mutated arachnid roaming the desolate wastelands of Missouri.

Less than twenty yards away, Scott-B124 of Spartan Fireteam Kilo kept track of the radscorpion in the scope of his Spartan Carbine, crosshairs resting squarely on the joint of the oversized pincer where the hardened outer carapace softened to allow flexibility whilst moving. It was still tough and resilient to attack, hence why he had chambered armour piercing rounds, but offered the best chance to break through and cause internal damage. Opposite him was Jack-B110 and Claire-B299, both also armed with Spartan Carbines loaded with AP rounds, and further back was Joan-B040 who hefted a sniper rifle instead.

He watched as the radscorpion continuously paused here and there, pivoting on its eight legs as though looking for something, or could actually sense the four Spartans watching it despite their camouflage systems enabling them to blend in with pretty much every environment. The Semi-Powered Infiltration armour was nowhere near as technologically advanced as Covenant AvCam systems that bent light to render a user invisible to the naked eye, instead relying on photo reactive panels that mimicked the colour and texture of the surrounding scenery to make it appear they _were_ part of the scenery.

The radscorpion came close to his position behind the trunk of a fallen tree, even verged on looking directly at the defiladed Spartan, but changed its mind and scuttled onward in its journey to parts unknown after about a second's deliberation, to which Scott responded by relaxing slightly and taking his finger off the trigger.

'I bet we could have taken it, boss,' Jack said once the radscorpion was gone, speaking over TEAMCOM.

'To what end?' Scott said back.

'I dunno,' Jack said. 'Collected its meat or something, maybe the stinger. People use them here, right?'

'Do you know which parts to take?' Claire asked.

'I dunno,' Jack said again. 'I'd have figured it out.'

'Eventually,' Joan added. 'Jack, leave the thinking to the adults. You're just the muscle here, after all.'

'And that's why you love me.'

The four Spartans broke from cover and formed up again on the road they had been walking along until Joan spotted the arachnid, powering down their camouflage panels to reveal Fireteam Kilo to any casual observer but even then, light seemed to just slide off the suits' edges to make getting a clear image a difficult task. From afar they looked like adults, all four being approximately six feet tall in height with Jack being an inch or two higher and Joan an inch or two shorter, though up close and without their helmets the Spartans of Kilo appeared to be no older than fourteen or fifteen, which was true.

Singled out by ONI at a young age due to them all being war orphans, the members of Fireteam Kilo had volunteered to join the Spartan-III program as a means of getting bloody revenge against those who had killed their parents, almost invariably the alien theocratic alliance known as the Covenant that was pressing inwards on humanity's territory with the express intent of killing them all in the name of their religion. Following a night jump back in 2539 as part of the screening process, the Spartans of what would become Beta Company spent the next six years training in the art of warfare under Lieutenant Ambrose, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez, and their veritable army of drill instructors made up of the UNSC's best NCOs and Alpha Company washouts, candidates from the previous generation of Threes who went out of their way to make lives for the new batch an absolute living hell.

The express intent of the Spartan-III program was to create a fighting force of augmented supersoldiers that could be thrown at the seemingly unstoppable Covenant in an effort to slow them down, if even for just a few weeks and at a cost of the entire company. The whole of Alpha Company had died to the last during an operation to neutralise a Covenant shipbuilding yard on the peripheries of UNSC space mere months after activation. Scott was certain the same would happen to Beta Company at some point in the future but rather than feel slighted at the UNSC carelessly throwing away so many lives, he would gladly commit to such a mission if it meant killing Covenant soldiers and hurting their war efforts.

That being said, he and his team wouldn't actually be able to join such a mission if the UNSC was organising one because they actually had no way of getting in contact with anyone in HIGHCOM, and neither did they have any way of actually confirming where they were. Lieutenant Ambrose had selected Fireteam Kilo to take part in a counter-Insurrection operation on the Outer Colony of Roost where their role was to observe and report any Insurrectionist activity to follow on Marine forces who were going to quell any and all rebel groups before they could grow potent enough to overthrow the government.

Except that something had gone wrong with the drop somehow, and rather than landing on a lush jungle planet the Spartans of Kilo found themselves in a radioactive desert being fought over by a band of slavers styling themselves on Julius Caesar's Roman Legion and a fledgling nation styling itself on the now defunct United States. All points suggested an error had occurred during deployment of their drop pods and the UNSC _Pillar of Autumn_ was off course by a wide margin when launching, and Kilo instead landed on some long forgotten colony that had descended into anarchy and war.

The problem with this theory was the prevailing opinion of the people living here that this planet was actually Earth, humanity's homeworld, and that a great nuclear exchange had taken place some two-hundred years prior between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China and humanity had never made it past landing on the Moon in regards to space exploration and colonisation. By and large the ruins Kilo saw seemed to support this fact with half-rotted billboards advertising things like a vacation destination or a pastime as an American tradition, but at the same time the technology they came across was so antiquated next to what humanity had even two-hundred years ago. Vacuum tubes were still common despite transistors and semiconductors becoming the cornerstone of almost all electronic devices built by humanity, and what few nuclear power plants they came across relied on fission to generate electricity rather than fusion.

Kilo had come up with two possible theories about why this was; one improbable and one impossible. The first held that this still was a UNSC colony, albeit one everybody had forgotten about long ago and where the population suffered from some form of mass delusion that convinced them they actually were on Earth and living in America. The other was that Kilo had somehow crossed over into a parallel dimension, and of the two it was this one that Scott found himself leaning towards more and more.

Jack was the one to suggest the theory in the absence of any credible explanation that didn't hinge on an entire planet regressing their technological level to that of the 1940s and 50s, losing their FTL capable ships, and then suffering the same mass delusion that their planet was actually Earth and they were all living in what had once been the United States of America. It answered one question but raised numerous others, the least of which was _how_ they got here to begin with.

How were they going to get back to their home universe? Could they go back? Which group should they align with until they figured this out? What would they do to keep themselves occupied until such a time they could go home?

The matter of getting home was, as yet, uncertain to the four Spartans but they had found a group they could ally themselves with, if only temporarily, in the form of the New California Republic. In exchange for information and supplies, Kilo assisted the NCR in retaking the Mojave Wasteland back from Caesar's Legion to secure a pivotal source of freshwater and power, and a city that had the potential to generate the necessary revenue to support further expansion. On paper it sounded great, especially given the NCR extolled law and order above all else, though a closer look suggested a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy that trampled the masses underfoot in pursuit of profits for the major companies.

Conditions like this had created the Insurrection and pushed humanity into a civil war that had the potential to plunge humanity into a civil war that would kill billions and create a new Dark Age amongst the colonies and Earth. Rumblings had been spreading amongst some of the frontier settlements of the NCR about unequal representation within the government and Kilo had no intention of participating in a civil war or quelling civil unrest should such a situation arise. Though the Insurrection had genuine grievances against the CAA, their tactics were far too brutal for them to be seen as anything other than a threat that needed to be taken down.

So after helping recapture Vegas and acquiring new weapons, they had slipped away during the night to try and link up with a splinter group of another faction that had come out of California, the Brotherhood of Steel, that was allegedly using the technology they recovered to better the lives of the people living within their sphere of influence in the area surrounding Washington, DC. The actual political situation there was unknown to anyone in the NCR, meaning anything ranging from a peaceful nation state to full on civil war could have happened, so part of Kilo's trek across America was to find a suitable home for themselves if DC fell through.

Nothing thus far had shown any promise of a stable homestead that could blossom into an organisation or government that might offer stability and protection to the masses of the wasteland at large, the closest yet being the NCR that was edging closer to civil unrest and revolt, but they still had plenty of land to cover with plenty of settlements and post-war factions waiting to be discovered.

 **1450 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

There wasn't much that could stop a determined squad of Spartans from accomplishing their objectives short of orbiting ships that had weapons capable of melting dirt into glass, and even they could be stopped via boarding actions in certain situations, but the one thing that accounted for the most amount of blown missions or failed objectives was the same thing that was also their best friend during operations.

Nature.

Be it a deeply wooded area that denied access to vehicles or low lying hills that screwed with targeting radars, nature was the single largest deciding factor in a battle's outcome after maybe logistics. It dictated the avenues of approach and retreat, provided cover for attackers and defenders alike, or simply provided an obstacle that couldn't be passed easily like a mountain range or swampland, or like now a river.

Kilo stood on the bank of the Mississippi River looking out across the raging floodwaters that composed it, a violent churning of water turned a murky brown by sediments stirred up by the current and who knew what other contaminants that soured the land. Across from them was what remained of the bridge that had once stood here, little more than rusted struts and crumbling asphalt from when the river had swept away the construction, and the road it had served.

'Well,' Jack said. 'Crap.'

'Yeah,' Scott said in agreement, idly nodding his head.

It was barely thirty metres from one bank to another where they stood, an easy feat for even the most novice of swimmers, but the current looked to be wickedly fast and strong enough that even Spartans, especially ones laden down with as much equipment as Kilo, would get swept along without too much hassle to be thrown into any number of rocks or wrecks and suffer grievous injuries they couldn't easily fix. Assuming, of course, they could be fished out in time by somebody else.

There was too much of a risk to try and cross the river here in its current state meaning Kilo could either find another intact bridge, a rarity in this day and age given the lack of care, or wait nearby until the waters calmed and they were able to swim or be taken across by a ferry. As they had no idea how far it might be to the next bridge, assuming there was one, the four Spartans made the unanimous decision to wait it out.

Together they span on their collective heels and began walking back into the town built directly adjacent to the bridge, a rundown place barely ten blocks to a side and half filled by boarded up buildings that hadn't seen a human inhabitant in centuries. The other half was more vibrant and alive but not by much, with most of the people who lived here doing their best to cover up windows and doors with planks of wood as though they were expect a hurricane or tornado to rip through town.

All of them had regarded the Spartans with a mixture of emotions when they first walked through town, curiosity being one of the chief ones but mixed in with that was a healthy dose of pity and worry like they knew something was about to befall the four of them but there was nothing that could be done to prevent it, like the bridge being out and the river being flooded, but at the same time Scott felt it was something else.

He was certain these people were readying themselves for an attack rather than preparing for violent weather, though he couldn't imagine from what as neither he nor his team had seen any evidence of raider gangs operating in the region or even violent mutants like feral ghouls. Perhaps it was a response to seeing four armoured and armed people walk into town, though the level of progress in some areas suggested they had worked on this hours before Kilo's arrival.

It was gnawing at the young Spartan as he entered the town's general store, a dimly lit affair that stocked such a random assortment of goods and junk that Scott was sure this was actually the home of a crazy hoarder rather than a merchant, only to remind himself that everything served a purpose in a wasteland, even if it wasn't the intended use for that item, and he zeroed in on the owner of the store.

'Lookin' fer somethin'?' the owner said, a wizened old man with a stooped back and a flowing white beard that made him look like an old wizard or apothecary, which actually fitted in with the store's general theme of having anything and everything.

'Supplies,' Scott said, directing his team to comb through the racking for whatever they might be short on or felt could be useful in the future. 'And information.'

'On crossin' the Missus?' the shopkeeper said.

'Yes,' Scott said, not even bothering to ask how the man knew what the subject would be. Everyone had watched them walk through town and to where, so conclusions wouldn't be hard to draw.

'Oh, she ain't settlin' fer another week or so,' the shopkeeper said. 'She's in one o' _them_ moods.'

He cackled and let loose a wheezing laugh that sounded like he was dying, stooping even lower to slap his knee in merriment before turning back to Scott.

'Can she be crossed?' Scott asked.

'Of course!' the shopkeeper said. 'She's cross now. That's why she's a churnin' an' a turnin'. Ain't nobody crossin' the Missus till she's settled.'

He let out that same laugh and slapped the same knee like his joke was pure comedy gold, which it maybe was but to Scott it was just irritating him. He wanted some kind of information on getting across the Mississippi as quickly as possible so he and his team could continue their onward journey, and to leave town before whatever was supposed to hit the town actually got here, and jokes about rivers getting PMS wasn't helping in that regard.

'Is there a way to get across?' Scott said, his tone clipped and dry to try and let the shopkeeper know this wasn't the time to be joking around.

'Not until she calms down,' the shopkeeper said. 'Used to be a bridge here, as I'm sure ya saw, but that got swept away long afore my time. Now it's down to Ol' Steve an' his raft, but he don't take anyone across the Missus when she's in a mood. Too dangerous.'

'And it's going to be a week before the river settles,' Scott said. 'Isn't it?'

The shopkeeper waved a knowing finger at the Spartan and offered a crooked smile revealing several missing teeth, adding, 'Yer a smart one, fella. Yep, the Missus is gonna be in a mood fer at least a week by my reckonin', which means Ol' Steve an' his raft are staying put until then. Yer in luck, fella. You an' ya group.'

'How so?' Scott asked.

'Cause yer on this side the Missus rather than the other!' The old man laughed. 'Ain't nuthin' that side the Missus but miles an' miles of open land that offer no shelter, no nuthin', against the elements. Yeah, yer lucky to be here, fella.'

'I... see,' Scott said.

The old man's accent was making it difficult at time to discern what it was he was actually saying, a fact not helped by his apparent eccentricity, but he was managing to get the gist of it all. Had they been moving east to west, their accommodations might have amounted to making a lean too against whatever trees were present with anything they could scavenge. Here, on this side, they could choose between an empty house or maybe even a functional motel assuming this town had one.

'Is there anywhere in town we can stay?' Scott asked. 'A motel or hotel, maybe?'

'Course,' the shopkeeper said. 'Wouldn't be much of a stopover town without one, fella. Yer gonna wanna go one block north from here, then two to yer west. Can't miss it.'

'Thank you,' Scott said, turning to look out the front window at a couple hammering nails into place over a window. 'Are you expecting trouble in the coming days?'

'Trouble?' the shopkeeper said. 'Why'd ya say that, fella?'

'People are fortifying their homes,' Scott said, pointing at the couple. 'Either against violent winds or an attack of some kind.'

'That explains why people were comin' in fer nails an' hammers yesterday an' today,' the shopkeeper said. He paused and stroked his beard in deep thought, ruminating on something, then asked, 'Say, fella, ya been watching the moon?'

'To a certain degree,' Scott said slowly, unsure of where this new line of questioning was leading.

'Is it gettin' close to full?'

'I believe so. Maybe three days until it is.'

'An' the Missus is in a mood, yeah?'

'Yes.'

'Ah.'

The shopkeeper went quiet at that and continued stroking his beard, lost in thought as his eyes flickered one way and then the other as he dwelled on something with the occasional look at Scott and his team as they scoured the aisles for supplies, more specifically their weapons. It amounted to four Spartan Carbines, modified marksman carbines that mounted integrated suppressors and reinforced components, a sniper rifle with much the same modifications, and a twelve gauge pump action shotgun. Hardly an arsenal but entirely adequate for a team of Spartans that utilised stealth and coordination to take out enemies.

'Yer a soldier, ain't ya?' the shopkeeper asked.

'Yes,' Scott said.

'A good one?'

'Yes,' Scott said again.

The shopkeeper nodded.

'If yer plannin' on stayin' in town, ya might want to make yer team known to the mayor,' the shopkeeper said. 'Four good soldiers might be just what we need to take on _them_.'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **1506 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

It didn't take a genius to know that _them_ meant trouble of some sort, which is exactly the kind of thing Spartans were designed to deal with, so the four members of Kilo gathered up what few supplies they needed and followed the shopkeeper's directions to another part of town that housed the residence and office of the mayor, one Ol' Carl according to the shopkeeper, who was the person to see about offering help against them.

'Lot of Ol' people in town,' Jack said as they worked their way through the streets, mimicking the shopkeeper's accent almost perfectly. 'First there was the Ol' Shopkeep, then Ol' Steve an' his raft, an' now Ol' Carl an' his town. Ah reckon we might be the only young 'uns in town, fella.'

He clapped Scott on the shoulder then slapped his own knee, again mimicking the old man's laugh and gesture with an unnerving degree of accuracy, even as a trio of grubby looking children ran past them in the opposite direction. All three were dressed in typical wasteland garb of both salvaged pre-war clothing and post-war imitations of clothes sewn from rough cloth, kicking a bent tin can along the ground and laughing, apparently oblivious to the ominous air hanging over the town even as grim faced adults built up fortifications. Either that or they had picked up on the shift in mood and were doing their best to blot out the negativity.

'But are all the Ol' People as crazy as that guy back there?' Claire asked, jerking her thumb in the general direction of the store. 'Or will he be a special case?'

'He's probably going to be the exception,' Joan said. 'Every town always has that one weird guy who sticks out more than most people. Like Jack's the weird one for us.'

'I did feel this special connection between us,' Jack said, thoughtfully, as though contemplating something. 'Like attracts like, I guess.'

'Unless this is a weird town,' Scott said as they turned another corner. 'The shopkeeper's behaviour could be the norm here and _we're_ the weird ones. Everything's relative.'

Jack looked up and down the line of Spartans, each of them a teenager too young to vote or legally drink alcohol according to UNSC law despite being responsible for defending humanity against an alien menace, and said, 'Boss, regardless of the place, we're _always_ the weird ones.'

'And you're the weirdest one of all,' Claire said. 'Aren't you?'

'Eeyup,' Jack said, no doubt sporting a grin behind his mirrored visor.

The rest of the team let faint smiles creep on their faces as they turned the final corner and found themselves facing the mayoral residence and main office, a two storey building nestled between the sheriff's department and fire station that had once served this town before the downfall of society, though upon closer inspection it seemed they were still in service. A group of men and women in beige uniforms were clustered outside the sheriff's department, sifting through a decent looking selection of guns, whilst a larger number of people were swarming over what had once been a fire engine, only hastily retrofitted and jury rigged to work in the post-war conditions with a team of brahmin filling in for an engine and numerous hand cranks serving as power for the water pumps.

Whoever or whatever was coming for the town looked to be a major threat given the concerned and worried looks everyone bore, which only made Scott frown a little as he led Kilo towards the mayor's office. It had to be a fairly large fighting force coming to hit this town if everyone was doing their best to fortify it against attack despite their apparent numbers. Compared to other towns and villages Kilo had walked through, barring those in the NCR, this was the single biggest location in terms of area covered and population, and raider groups tended to grow no larger than ten or twenty people at a maximum given their inability to sustain themselves outside of stealing from others.

Even though Kilo had only covered a small part of the town it looked to have a population somewhere in the low hundreds with most of them being old enough to stand and fight, and if the armoury was anything to go by they also had enough guns of reasonable quality to outfit them all. So how big was the fighting force coming to hit them? Or was it just very well trained?

'What's on your mind?' Claire asked as they paused to watch everyone, nudging Scott's shoulder.

'I'm thinking about the raiders that are coming to town,' he said. 'And how big a group or how well trained they might be. You've seen the size of this place, and how many weapons they have, but they're still afraid of what's coming.'

'Could be they have fancy tech,' Claire said with a shrug. 'Like the Brotherhood of Steel has.'

'Technology only gets you so far,' Scott countered. 'No, this feels like something else.'

Claire nodded as the Spartans carried on, walking across the pockmarked street and onto the worn sidewalk that led to the office. Either side of them, the people outside the sheriff's office and the fire station stopped what they were doing to turn and look at the four newcomers, those with guns holding them a little closer out of wariness, but none actually dared come any closer than they already were.

'How did you know I was thinking about something?' Scott asked when they reached the office's front door.

'Easy,' Claire said. 'Your foot was tapping.'

 **1530 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

Inside the office they found it to be mostly empty with just a lone receptionist manning the entrance from behind a battered wooden desk, looking up in surprise at the four armoured individuals walking in, and two aides flicking through several dossiers in the main room who barely looked up when Kilo was admitted entry to speak with the mayor who, despite his name, did not look at all old enough to have earned the moniker of Ol' from the shopkeeper.

Carl was probably coming up on fifty years of age, his hair dark brown with flecks of grey here and then, and used to an inactive lifestyle that came from being a bureaucrat judging by the rotund belly he sported, but when he looked up at his new visitors they saw a spark of intelligence in his eyes that few others seemed to possess which was probably why he had this position. He looked at each of the four Spartans in turn, taking in their strange appearance, then looked at them again expectantly as he waited for them to state their reason for requesting an audience.

'We understand your town is due to be hit within the next few days by a hostile force,' Scott said. 'And we'd like to offer our services in repelling the attack.'

Carl's brows shot up in surprise at that and he said, 'You do? Really? Why?'

'Because we're stuck in town until the Mississippi River calms down enough to travel across,' Scott said. 'Which means we'll be stuck in town when this attack is set to take place, so we'll be engaging any and all hostile forces that come after us anyway, though it'd be better to work alongside the local population in this regard to avoid incidents of friendly fire and establish a more effective response.'

'Uh-huh,' Carl said. 'And what would you get in return for helping us out?'

'Supplies and further onward passage,' Scott said. 'We're heading to the eastern seaboard.'

'Supplies,' Carl said. 'Right.'

'It's true,' Jack added. 'We're kinda like nomads.'

'Uh-huh,' Carl said again, once more eying each Spartan and their equipment up. It looked and was leagues above almost everything else in this wasteland that a regular person could find, and certainly better than anything available in town at the moment, so Carl shrugged his shoulders in resignation. 'What the hell, it's not like I'm really in a position to say no to help at this point. Head next door into the armoury and talk to Sheriff Maria. She's the one coordinating our defence, for what it's worth.'

 **1539 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

Unlike the mayor's office, the sheriff's department was abuzz with activity from around twenty people as they readied for the attack, all of them wearing the same beige uniform that had to be a holdover from before the war, though repaired and retrofitted as time wore on. Four of them bore a silver, seven pointed star and seemed to be in charge of four or five people each, directing them to carry crates of guns out or boxes of ammunition, whilst a fifth had a golden version of the badge and looked to be in charge of them all, flitting from one group to the next to correct something or just give them a hand.

Scott took this to be Sheriff Maria and approached her at a slow pace, Kilo fanned out behind him, and as he did everyone tensed up again, their hands resting on the grips of holstered pistols or on the stocks of crated rifles in case things escalated, but Sheriff Maria waved them off as she approached the Spartan. She was shorter than Scott by a good half foot and, like Carl, her body had adapted to the lifestyle that came with her job though where the mayor was soft and doughy, Maria was hard and wiry with numerous scars from countless fights she had gotten herself into.

'Yes?' she said to the Spartan.

'The mayor sent us,' Scott said, gesturing at himself and his team. 'We're here to help defend the town from attack.'

'You are, are you?' Maria said. She did the same examination of Kilo as Carl had, arrived at much the same conclusion, then motioned for them to follow her inside. 'Okay. Let's bring you up to speed.'

Scott nodded in agreement and moved after Maria when she span on her heel and headed into the sheriff's office. Like the mayor's, it had weathered the passage of time poorly but the decor hadn't been overly great to begin with, the builders simply painting the cinderblock walls a drab grey colour that had faded away to almost nothing since then, and the floor was covered by cracked and peeling linoleum that was just as colourful. Maria's feet deftly navigated all the holes and loose flaps without even looking, apparently having memorised their every location, and was soon sitting behind her desk and directing the Spartans to do the same.

Behind her was a wall sized map of the town showing the grid like street plan, ten blocks to a side, plus numerous extra additions as time went on and places were abandoned or converted into a new purpose. All along the main drag it seemed to be shops and service stations where weary travellers could buy new clothes and food or tend to any damage done to their wagons by the wasteland, and further back from that was a mass of housing for the population and motels for people just passing through. Beyond that, the town became mostly abandoned barring one or two locations labelled as being occupied but the ink on these labels was faded enough that the information was probably out of date.

The only other point of interest on the map was the town's name, River's Bend, which someone had modified at some point so that it now read as The Bend for reasons unknown. Maybe the original town's sign was partly rotted away, or maybe it was just for brevity's sake that harkened back to the founding of the town. Scott just mentally shrugged as Maria reached into one of her desk's drawers and pulled out a creased folder filled with yellowed pieces of paper.

'I'm going to start by assuming you're all familiar with raiders, right?' Maria said, to which the Spartans all nodded. 'Great. That's not what we'll be dealing with in three days. We're dealing with something far worse.'

She pulled out a trio of photos and spread them out on the desk before Kilo, each image showing the dead body of a young man in his early to mid twenties, in varying states of undress. The first had him fully clothed in a dark robe, black almost, with blood red stitching along the hem of it that seemed to form arcane runes of some description, each one flowing into the next almost perfectly and without error. In the next, the robe was gone and he was wearing a vest and underwear only which, like the robe, bore runic stitching that weaved into the next to create one unbroken chain. Crude tattoos were visible too on his arms and legs, though these were images rather than runes and appeared to display some eldritch abomination, replete with tentacles, reaching out for a trio of figures cowering away from it.

The third and final photo showed the man totally naked, his chest and stomach filled with not just tattoos but ritualistic scarification that seemed to depict a great battle between the eldritch creatures and a trio of knights, gallantly protecting a group of people, though the visage was ruined slightly by the demonic appearance of the knights compared to that of the monsters which were given more appeasing appearances than they normally would have gotten.

'Yeah, I got nothing,' Jack said.

'That's worrying,' Joan said.

'Eeyup,' Jack said with a solemn nod.

'Nothing is right,' Maria said. 'These guys are cultists, as far as we can tell. Every time the moon is full and the Mississippi is flooded, they come and ransack the town without fail once it gets dark.'

'What do they take?' Scott asked, though he could guess the answer.

'People,' Maria said. 'Kids, mainly, but occasionally they'll take people who are as old as twenty-five. For what? I don't know. I don't think I even want to know at this point, judging by that guy's tattoos and scars. Whatever it is, it ain't pleasant.'

'How do they do it?' Claire asked. 'What's their typical method of entry? Weapons? Numbers? Tactics?'

'They make full use of the darkness,' Maria said. 'And they're all fast freaks, so if you catch a glimpse of one you're doing well. The only reason we have any photos at all is because this one died of a heart attack or something. Weapons? I'd have to say typical wasteland fare of pistols and submachine guns, though they've got knives and clubs as well judging by some injuries we've sustained over the years.

'As for the numbers, they probably throw forty to fifty people at us to cover as much ground as they do in so short a time.

'The scary thing is, they do it all in complete silence. Usually the only way we know we're under attack is when the _victims_ start making noise. There's no vocal communication between them all about who's going in which building or taking which person. They just _do it_. It's scary.'

'Or a result of good training,' Scott said. 'My team and I can coordinate using nothing but hand signals, or even just knowing what they'd do in a particular situation.'

Maria nodded and said, 'Maybe. Still freaky though.'

'It can be,' Scott said. 'Which direction do they come in from?'

'From the west,' Maria said. 'As near as we can tell, anyway, and always along the central roadway. It's like they know the centre is where everyone lives.'

'Do you know where they come from?'

'Maybe,' Maria said, making a so-so gesture. 'Before I was born, long before, apparently somebody who was taken managed to escape and come back home, only they died about a minute later after saying one word.'

'Which was?' Joan asked.

'Accounts vary,' Maria said. 'And a lot of the people who were alive to see him return are long dead now. I think Wilson is the only one still around and, well, you've met him. He runs the supply store.'

'That's Ol' Wilson?' Jack said, slipping back into the shopkeeper's accent. 'Are ya sure, young' un?'

'I'm sure,' Maria said, her face a mask. 'And don't ever do that again.'

'Good luck enforcing that,' Joan muttered under her breath.

Scott suppressed a smile and said, 'What was the word?'

'Most people claim it was sumbitch, like the guy was so annoyed he'd made it home just to die as he got there, but others claim he actually said Dunwich, as though he were telling people where he'd been taken.'

'Which do you think it was?'

'Dunwich,' Maria said. 'There's this old estate about twenty miles from here that belonged to some pre-war company called Dunwich Borers, and legend has it they were into some weird shit. The sheriff at the time thought so as well and he gathered up a group of thirty people, all our best, to go and check it out. As you might imagine, they were never seen again.'

'So why don't most people think it was Dunwich as well?' Claire asked. 'If the guy said that, and then thirty people go missing investigating the place, that has to imply a connection. Doesn't it?'

'It should, but most people tell themselves it was sumbitch so that they've got no incentive to go out and look,' Maria said with a shake of her head. 'Better to not know where the bad guys are coming from so they don't have to go out and deal with them on their home turf. Besides, they only turn up every few decades or so, so why should we worry about losing two dozen people when they do?'

'That's messed up,' Jack said.

Maria shrugged again. 'Yeah, but that's how it is, and that's you all caught up with current events. If you have any suggestions or advice to give, give it, because I'm willing to hear anything at this point to keep these freaks from taking anyone else from us.'

'We'll need to have a look around town first, sheriff,' Scott said. 'And at your selection of firearms before we can make an assessment, but I think we'll be able to help in this situation.'

'Great,' Maria said. 'I'll tell my deputies to work with you as best they can but they've got other things to be taking care of as well. Okay?'

'Okay,' Scott said. 'We'll get back to you as soon as possible.'

The sheriff offered a thin lipped smile as she stood up from her desk, leaving the dossier on the cult out, and headed back outside to her deputies to tell them of the change in plan. As she did, Scott was just as quick in dispersing his own orders to Kilo. He and Claire would give the whole town a once over, get a lay of the land and figure out what defences they could put into play, whilst Jack and Joan would take a look at the town's supply of weapons and at the combat ability of the people who'd be wielding them. Once everyone was done, they'd reconvene to swap notes and move forward with their plans ahead of presenting them to Maria and the mayor.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 **1602 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

If there were ever two Spartans that could have vastly different opinions when it came to weaponry, it would have been Jack and Joan. Whereas she was a sniper, one of the top shooters in all of Beta Company and therefore very picky when it came to what kind of rifle she held, Jack was very much a brawler and a bruiser who wanted nothing more than to see his enemies dead before him, and this meant he was happy to use just about anything in combat, so long as it applied to his personal motto of so long as it can kill.

What this meant was that between them, they looked over the two vital aspects of a weapon to determine their suitability for combat; lethality and quality of manufacture, and maintenance.

The first to cast an appraising eye over the weapons as they approached the deputies sorting through their armoury was Joan, flitting between the crates and haphazard piles of rifles, pistols, submachine guns and shotguns after explaining to the men and women working there Sheriff Maria had okayed them to look. Personally, Joan saw nothing that she would have wanted butted up against her shoulder, seeing no precision weapons of any kind beyond a single hunting rifle mounting a basic telescopic sight. Professionally, she couldn't help but admit that they were up to standard.

They were all well oiled and cleaned, showing little evidence that almost two-hundred years had passed since most of them rolled off the production lines. Obviously, the police department of River's Bend took great care of their equipment and that endeared them somewhat to Joan, or as much as civilians she had only just met could be to a Spartan-III. Next to her, Jack reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a 10mm submachine gun that he hefted one handed, aiming down the crude iron sights at a nearby fencepost, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing but a dull click answered him, the magazine being both empty and not inserted, and he nodded his head appreciatively.

'No snag,' he said.

'No stock, either,' Joan said pointedly. 'You fire that on full auto, the barrel is going to stitch upwards no matter how much you brace your arms.'

'Yeah,' Jack said. 'Which is why you aim at the crotch first. Right?'

The last part was aimed at some of the nearby deputies who were looking on at the two Spartans standing amongst them with interest, who all smirked or chuckled at Jack's comment of where to aim an SMG with potent recoil. The CQC expert moved onto a shotgun next, almost identical in design to his own, nicknamed the Mule, and pumped the slide a few times to see if there were any issues there. He found none.

'Are all the weapons as maintained as this?' he asked the nearest deputy.

'Sure,' the guy said with a shrug. 'We get enough merchant traffic coming through town we can afford to buy all the replacement parts and lubricants we want, and the sheriff likes to make sure all our guns are ready, willing and able. You never know when the next threat's going to roll through town, right?'

'Eeyup,' Jack said. 'Training?'

'We can hit stuff at about the hundred metre mark,' the guy said. 'A little more with the hunting rifle. Never really needed to hit anything out beyond that. Raiders ain't the best shots, so all we have to be is just a little better than them.'

Joan made an unimpressed noise at that, clearly audible to everyone nearby, glancing at the rifles stowed nearby. There were similar in design to the service rifles used by the NCR's army, probably sharing a common ancestor, and she knew from her own experiences that they could hit a target out as far as three-hundred metres, the maximum limit for a firefight. Her and the rest of Kilo had outdone that standard following their induction into the army, low-tech sights and all, but that was to be expected of Spartans.

She shifted her gaze to the deputy that had already spoken, half expecting him to pass comment or issue some kind of challenge at her dismissal of their skills, but he didn't seem too inclined to do so. It was clear to anyone that the Spartans of Kilo belonged to some highly advanced faction given their armour, so it stood to reason that whatever combat skills they had would be second to none, and he probably knew that trying to match her or Jack in any kind of marksmanship competition would end badly for him.

Instead a diminutive woman from the back was the one to throw down the gauntlet, worming her way to the front of the crowd to say, with a raised tone of voice, 'Don't think we're good enough, bitch? I'll take you on.'

As she did, Joan saw Jack hunch his shoulders slightly and clench his fists, taking a half step towards his teammate as though putting himself between her and the approaching woman. As much as they differed on weaponry preferences, the bonds between the two of them still ran thick and deep to the point that each member of Kilo would fight and die for one another. In fact, their vastly different choices when it came to weapons was part of the reason why Jack and Joan had a deep bond. Sure, each Spartan had a reason as to why they were close to each member. With Claire, it was because they were both girls, and with Scott, it was because they could be extremely meticulous when it came to planning missions.

But when it came down to Jack, it was simply because they would always throw barbed jibes at one another that they were close friends. She might call him a bullet sponge given his typical role of acting as bait for her and the rest of Kilo, or a Neanderthal for engaging in hand-to-hand combat so often, and he would fire right back that she was little more than a snob for being so discerning when it came to firearms, or a wimp for never directly engaging in battle with the enemy when she was sniping. Oddly, Joan was certain Jack was her closest friend on Kilo, more so than Scott or Claire. If someone had to have her back, she would choose him in a heartbeat.

She flicked her finger at him, a signal to stand down, and squared up to the woman who, despite probably being twenty or thirty years older than her, still barely came up to her chest which stole some of the fire she had worked up at having her shooting skills called into question.

'Sure,' Joan said evenly. 'I want to see how badly you suck.'

'You saying we suck?' the woman yelled, and behind her the rest of the deputies tensed slightly, as though feeling incensed at the Spartan's comment. Again, Jack tensed up as well, ready for a brawl should they think to try something.

'No,' Joan said, fixing her gaze squarely on the woman now which, from behind the featureless visor of her helmet, must have looked intimidating. 'Just you.'

The woman's face went white from anger and her own hands formed into diminutive fists, as if readying herself to strike Joan, but instead she span on her heel and stomped over to the hunting rifle Joan had first seen to snatch it up in one angry movement, plus a box of ammunition and some spare magazines. Everybody's gaze swung to her, now more interesting than two Spartans dressed in SPI armour, then back to Joan who nodded in agreement at the challenge being issued.

'To the range, then,' Joan said, gesturing for the woman, who was probably the sharpshooter out of all of Sheriff Maria's forces, to lead on to wherever they practised shooting.

 **1630 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

The shooting range for the Bend was simply one of the streets located in the unoccupied section south of town, devoid of people and lined with markers at set intervals to denote range. Depressingly, the furthest marker only went out as far as 150 metres, and the target set up there had only a half dozen holes marring its surface.

Joan looked at it then switched to the woman as she loaded her hunting rifle and rested it on a bench somebody had hauled out here to use as a firing platform, a smattering of spent shell casings present on the top. Next to it the woman pulled out five rounds from the box and inserted them into one of the magazines she had brought, slapping it into place with far more force than was necessary. Obviously, she was nothing than a self-taught amateur and a poorly taught one at that.

'Five rounds, on the target,' the woman said, still livid at being dismissed so flippantly by Joan.

Behind her the rest of the deputies just had exasperated and resigned expressions on their faces. They knew this would _not_ go well for their colleague but there was little they or anyone could do to avert the merciless beating that was about to unfold, which suited Joan just fine. That meant they'd be willing to listen to her and the rest of Kilo when it came to shaping up over the next few days under their tutelage.

'Do you mean in the centre?' Joan asked. 'The black? Or just the paper itself?'

At that the woman seemed to pale, but for another reason. Joan's tone was neither uncertain or worried but casual, bored almost, as though all of those options was nothing more than a trivial matter for her to accomplish which, of course, they were. But, she refused to be cowed by that and in turn appear as cowardly before the others, so she swallowed and said, 'The black.'

'Okay,' Joan said.

She waited as a deputy rummaged around in one of the bench's drawers and withdrew two fresh paper targets, half jogging the distance to the targets to attach them to the backing board before ducking into a nearby building and appearing atop the roof, giving him a chance to look down at the targets without fear of being hit, even if his presence down there was a gross violation of even the most basic of ranges' safety regulations.

Joan let the deputy sharpshooter go first and watched as she nestled the hunting rifle on the bench in a pre-cut groove and peered through the scope at the not so distant targets, pausing slightly before firing her first shot. 150 metres away, a clang sounded as the round impacted the metal plating located behind the target, which now sported a hole that rode the line between the six and seven ring. The next two were little better and as the fourth round was sent down range, Joan glanced around her for something to help make her point all the more poignant to the woman, to make doubly sure she understood that the Spartans knew exactly what they meant when it came time to teach them.

About ten metres behind the group, which was standing five metres behind the bench, was an old streetlight that extended over the street by a good few feet. Jack, who had lost all interest in the woman, was looking around and he caught where Joan was looking. They locked eyes for a moment and Joan, beyond a doubt, knew there was a devious grin hidden his mirrored visor as he quickly grasped what her plan was.

They turned back just as the fifth and final round was fired and landed squarely in the five ring, none of the previous four rounds hitting anything higher than a seven. As if knowing that she hadn't really done well, the woman put down her rifle and turned to look at Joan, her defiance gone and a meekness in its place.

'My turn,' Joan said, but to the shock of everyone present she made no move towards the bench but back towards the streetlight, Jack handing her a coil of rope that he had already adjusted to suit her needs.

She threw one end over the lamp and wormed her foot into a ready made loop, just big enough to fit around her boot, and waited for Jack to start hauling on the other end of the rope to pull her up into the air. The deputies could only gawp in astonishment when they finally figured out just what Joan had in mind, none more so than the woman who had originally issued the challenge. Once she was off the ground and upside down with the rope securely tied off, Joan held out her sniper rifle to Jack and unlimbered her Spartan Carbine, a weapon which was actually less suited for engaging targets at a distance than even the full-sized rifles back in the armoury.

'Five rounds, yes?' Joan said to the woman, who could only meekly nod her head. Then, to Jack, said, 'Give me a push.'

'Eeyup,' was his gleeful response, placing a hand on Joan's back to send her swinging forward and at an angle that changed subtly every time she went back and forth, plus a slight spin to add even more complexity to the task.

An expert ODST marksman would have been hard pressed to make such a shot, to say nothing of five of them, but Joan managed to do so in the time it took the deputy to cycle through her first two shots, grabbing onto Jack's arm to slow and stop herself once the fifth shot was fired and dismounting from her swinging firing platform with liquid grace. Around her, the deputies could only stare on with slack jaws and vacant expressions at the display of marksmanship that had just taken place, doubly so when their wayward member returned with Joan's paper target that showed all five rounds had passed through the exact centre without even touching the ring. Her defeat complete, the woman just hung her head in shame as the deputies then began cheering and clapping their hands.

More than that, though, there was a glimmer of hope in their eyes that they could weather the coming storm with the aid of the four Spartans after seeing just what they could do, and what else they might know that they'd soon be passing onto them over the next few days.

 **1600 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

Scott and Claire exited the sheriff's office and angled towards the centre road running through town, where the majority of people lived and worked, and where the majority of the targets of the cult would be. Jack and Joan were already working through the various guns acquired by the local police force as they passed by and Scott knew they would determine how effective they were and what kind of calibre the people who worked under Maria were.

The young Spartan reasoned they had to be at least semi-competent if they were the chosen defenders of this town, and if they had survived against the numerous and various threats roaming this nuclear wasteland for this long, but that wasn't the same as expecting them to be just as good as the rank and file of the NCR Army, perhaps the largest standing armed force in the entire wasteland and probably one of the best trained. Different areas suffered different threats with varying severity, which meant the best troops in one town might be outmatched by the best troops in another.

However good they were, and however well they might become under Kilo's care, Scott still felt that the vast majority of the fighting against the cult was going to fall squarely on the shoulders of his team, a worrying prospect as they had absolutely no idea how big the attacking force was going to be when it finally came. Maria's guess of forty to fifty might be a conservative one, and a whole company's worth of cultists could swoop down upon the Bend in three night's time, or it could be grossly overestimated and nothing more than a squad would appear, utilising their small size to slip through the cracks and wreak havoc.

Casualties would mount, Scott was sure of that, but he had no idea of just how many or if his team would be counted amongst them. He hoped not.

'Centre thoroughfare,' Claire said as they set foot upon the main street that ran straight through town.

To the east they could see the mangled remains of the bride and to the west, the open fields Kilo had walked through on their journey to Washington, DC. Supposedly, somewhere out there, was the home of the cultists and where they took their captives back. Scott recalled the map Maria had behind her desk and roughed out the distances in his head to the rough location of the house, plus whatever additions had been made over the years.

'Very busy,' Scott observed as they watched people hurrying to and fro, carrying boards to nail over open windows or doorways, or carried personal weapons and ammunition into their homes. As befitting a town that saw plenty of merchant traffic, the guns were all of above average quality compared to what a ragtag bunch of raiders might acquire. 'A few hundred people, at least.'

'Yeah,' Claire said in agreement.

Scott shifted his gaze slightly upwards and looked at the lights lining the street, each of them nothing more than a rusty pole with remnants of broken glass where bulbs had once sat and unlikely to provide any illumination, which made the task of identifying targets at night an almost impossible one to accomplish for the average human. His eyes tracked downwards and flicked up and down the street, taking stock of the buildings that lined it and what the people here had turned them into.

As expected, motels and general stores were plentiful to accommodate the high volume of merchants and travellers that came through here, plus several diners that people occasionally ducked into to grab something to eat when they deigned to take notice of their bodily needs. Beyond that, there were one or two garages carved out of what used to be supermarkets and stores, a once wide expanse of glass knocked out and replaced with an open bay that housed one or two caravans in for repairs. Others still held the brahmin that pulled them.

The two-headed cattle might cause issues if a firefight ensued and the gunfire spooked them, stampeding out into the street to trample unsuspecting settlers under their hoofs in a blind panic. Then again, so could the untrained populace if things took a turn for the worse, real or perceived, and because they had guns they could inflict even more damage than the brahmin.

'I assume they move along this road,' Scott began, pointing at the western end of the road. 'Or the ones either side, in small groups with pre-determined targets. That has to be how they avoid talking amongst themselves about who gets to go where, or they do it with hand signals.'

'Hard to communicate with hands when there's little to no light,' Claire said, pointing to the busted lights. 'A full moon doesn't mean there isn't a heavy cloud cover.'

'Cateye, maybe,' Scott suggested, recalling the drug that boosted a person's night vision they had seen during their stay in the Mojave Wasteland. Even so, he doubted the cult had sufficient stocks to give every person a dose of the drug every time the moon became full, especially if they really came in groups of forty to fifty.

'So they designate specific teams to search specific buildings ahead of time,' Scott said.

'But how do they know which buildings to hit and which to miss?' Claire asked, making a circular motion with her finger. 'There's a couple dozen structures lining the street. Not all of them are going to contain people, and not all of the ones that do hold kids.'

Scott hummed in agreement as he stared at the outsides of all the buildings, trying to guess for himself which of them were home to people under the age of twenty-five, specifically the young children that seemed to make up the bulk of the cult's targets. There was nothing that especially leapt out at him as being an indicator children happened to occupy that specific building, no bikes or old toys or even chalk drawings on the sidewalks. Either the cult had supernatural abilities that led them right to where they needed to be, or they knew ahead of time where to strike.

'Someone tells them,' he said. 'They know somebody in town, or they come in ahead of the raid to scope things out.'

'Recon would make sense,' Claire said. 'But surely they'd standout from everyone else, right? They do practise ritualistic scarification, after all.'

'Maybe not all of them,' Scott said. 'Or, at least, not to a noticeable degree. A coat or something with long sleeves. Nobody would ever know.'

'So it could be anyone here,' Claire said, making a sweeping gesture at all the people scurrying about before them, plus a few people that had either finished their preparations or were simply watching the event unfold. Many of them were of the older age group, well outside what the cult went for, and thus the least likely to be taken. 'Do you suggest we stop everyone and ask to check every inch of their bodies?'

'No,' Scott said. 'That'd take too long, and it'd probably alert their spy we're onto them.'

He jerked a thumb at a nearby bar. 'We'd be better off asking people like the bartenders and store owners if they recall any new faces, or even repeat customers that don't live in town. They live for gossip.'

 **1627 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

The two Spartans stepped into an establishment that, technically, they were too young to enter without a legal guardian accompanying them and looked out upon some of the more downtrodden citizens of the Bend as they nursed half filled glasses or stared morosely at nothing, empty expressions on their faces indicative they were probably one or two drinks away from slipping into unconsciousness.

Presiding over them all was a portly gentleman stood behind an old wooden bar, an empty shot glass in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in another, preparing to serve a swaying figure dressed in grimy rags and smelling just as bad as he looked.

'Take a seat, I'll be with you in a moment,' the bartender called as he glanced at the Spartans before returning to the job of pouring another shot of whiskey.

They obliged and perched themselves on two worn barstools that creaked beneath their weight, the only protest they made at the weight placed upon them, and waited for the bartended to finish. A smattering of bottlecaps were flung onto the bar as payment for the shot which the bartender quickly scooped up and deposited into a nearby jar filled with countless more, all of them bearing the distinctive logo of the Nuka Cola company.

He turned to Scott and Claire, one hand resting near a selection of glasses and the other near a vast array of spirits and liquors, and said, 'What can I get you?'

'Information, if you have it,' Scott said.

'About why everyone's acting so nervous?' the bartender said.

'We know there's an attack coming,' Claire said. 'And we've already spoken with the mayor about it. We're lending a hand to stop the cult, but the more we know about them the better our chances at dealing with them.'

'Ah, more meat for the grinder,' the bartender said darkly, but nevertheless shrugged and motioned to the bottles behind him. 'Well, as a pre-emptive thanks in the hopes we do drive them off for good, care for a free drink? Anything you see here.'

'Nuka Cola,' both Spartans said simultaneously.

'We have stronger stuff than that,' the bartender said.

'Cola's fine,' Scott said.

The bartender opened his mouth to try and entice them into having something a bit harder, or maybe more adventurous, but stayed his tongue when Scott and Claire removed their helmets and he saw just how young they actually were. He pulled two of the bottles out from a different stretch of shelving and popped the caps off, pocketing them for himself and sliding the bottles over.

'So what do you want to know?'


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 **1830 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

The four Spartans reconvened in Pop's Diner, the Bend's top eatery by all accounts according to the citizens, and claimed ownership of an empty corner booth in short order, a waitress bustling over to take their orders and nodding her head upon jotting it all down. A minute later she returned with four bottles of Nuka Cola and an urn of piping hot coffee, plus cutlery, then returned to the rest of her customers as they ate and drank, alone and in groups.

Many seemed downbeat, aware of the dark days that lay ahead, but they were certainly more upbeat than the patrons of the various bars that filled the Bend. They seemed determined that the fight was already over, and the best thing to do was endure it and hope they died before another attack came. But here, in the diner, most of the customers were discussing between themselves potential ways of stopping the cultists this time around, and Scott kept an ear cocked for any sources of inspiration as he and the rest of Kilo removed their helmets and stowed them, ready to talk and eat.

'So how does the police department stack up?' was the first question from Scott.

'They're okay,' Joan said. 'Not great, but not bad. Their equipment is in good shape, better than I expected.'

'Only because you expected crap,' Jack said.

'The rest of the wastelands haven't given me much optimism,' Joan said. 'Even in merchant towns.'

'But we can rely on it to not breakdown?' Scott said.

'Yeah,' Joan said. 'They take care of their guns.'

'How about using them?' Claire asked.

'Best we can get out of them is a hundred metres,' Joan said, shaking her head. 'They say raiders aren't the best shots, so they only have to be better than them by enough of a margin.'

'Great,' Scott said with a groan. 'I'd have liked them to be better than that, but a hundred metres isn't the end of the world, I guess. They probably won't be engaging the cultists at anything beyond that.'

'Do we have an idea on how they operate, boss?' Jack asked.

'Some,' Scott said. 'Given there's no observed vocal communication between them during raids indicates they're well trained and coordinated as a unit, and the fact they know exactly where the children and teens are suggests they have some kind of informant in town. Who, we don't know.'

'None?' Joan asked. 'I'd have figured that the townspeople would have noticed a guy in robes and scars poking around, asking questions.'

'That could just apply to the fodder,' Claire said. 'We don't know enough about this cult to be certain of anything. They might have numerous different sects and cliques that mark their bodies in different ways.

'The likeliest options are some of the hermits and recluses that live in the buildings on the outskirts of town, away from everyone, who only make an appearance when they're low on supplies.'

'We'll check on them in the morning,' Scott said. 'See what they know, or don't, and scope out the rest of the town for supplies we can use. What we find will determine how we set up.'

Their waitress came back at that point with four plates piled high with food, a mixture of brahmin meat and canned pre-war edibles that the cook had tried to reshape into something palatable. By and large, he had succeeded and the Spartans started in on their meals without complaint, ignoring the conflicted expression of the waitress as she walked away.

Word had gotten around town pretty quickly the four of them were here to help, giving the townspeople a glimmer of hope that they hadn't had in years, though doubt soon began to creep back once they found out the four hulking figures were little more than teenagers themselves, exactly the type of people the cult was coming to take. The more cynical and pessimistic of the group began to openly voice their misgivings on entrusting the fate of their town to kids, whilst others couldn't make up their minds about the matter.

'I've already got some ideas,' Scott said. 'The bulk of people live along the main street, so the cult moves along it or the ones parallel. We can establish chokepoints and ambushes along them to stall or deny their advancement, especially around the homes that hold targets.'

'I could establish an overwatch position on top of a building near the road,' Joan suggested. 'Keep an eye out, then hit them whilst they're disorientated by your ambushes and when they retreat out into the wastes.'

Scott nodded. 'Not a bad idea. Once we know where the ambushes will be, we can work out the best place for you to be.'

'We're not even on dessert and you're already planning to hide,' Jack said with a chuckle and a grin.

'Says the one who's going to be my bait,' Joan muttered back.

'Eeyup,' Jack said.

'Leave a few alive,' Scott said. 'Assuming they fall back. We need to follow them back to their base of operations so we can assault it, ending their threat.'

'Don't we already know the location?' Claire said. 'The Dunwich place.'

'I want to get confirmation first,' Scott said. 'Sheriff Maria chose to believe that escapee said Dunwich, not sumbitch. They could be anywhere.'

The other Spartans nodded their heads in agreement and the talk about the cult's location came to end there and then, shifting to the various traps and pitfalls they could implement to break the cult's incursion of River's Bend. They assumed that the incursion team would be complacent in their ability to infiltrate the town, having never encountered any serious resistance before outside of a parent with a gun or knife, and thus would be vulnerable to the disorder and confusion that came from a massive, violent counterattack by a superior force.

Chief amongst their methods would be counteracting the cult's greatest ally. Darkness.

 **2207 HOURS, OCTOBER 09, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

Scott stepped out of the motel room and shut the door behind him, sweeping his gaze up and down the street to get a feel for just how dark it was going to be when the cultists made their move. As he had seen earlier in the day, none of the streetlights were operating to cast even a dim pool of light on the street below, and none of the shopfronts had hung any lanterns up to guide late night customers in.

If not for the pale light of the moon, the whole place would have been completely shrouded in blackness.

The sole Spartan stepped away from the motel room into the street proper, turning in quick quarter circles, then headed back for his room once he'd seen enough. Inside, he found a soft yellow light coming from an aging lamp in the corner that was almost dazzling. He blinked once then dumped himself on his bed to begin the process of stripping his armour away ahead of turning in for the night.

Next to him on the room's other bed was Jack, already bereft of his suit, flicking through a battered novel he had plucked from a bookcase that sat were a television once had. As near as Scott could tell from the cover, it was about combatting the red menace known as communism and its cousin, socialism, through the metaphor of war. That, or it was a historical text about war from this country's past. They seemed very keen on the idea of eradicating both systems of government from the planet, according to posters and propaganda left behind by them.

Jack didn't seem too thrilled by the contents if the bored look in his eyes was any indicator, going through the motions simply to pass the time until they turned in, and he readily tossed the book away when Scott was finished.

'It's dark out there,' he said.

'Eeyup,' Jack said. 'Tends to be when there's no illumination.'

'Which makes the cult's infiltration of the town all the more daunting,' Scott said. 'If there's cloud cover, there's no light, yet they seem to be able to find their targets anyway.'

'Maybe they have some old night vision goggles,' Jack said with a shrug. 'Or lots and lots of Cateye.'

Scott shrugged back. 'Claire suggested that as well. Could be both, could be neither. Maybe they've mutated a little and can see in the dark without external aid.'

'Maybe,' Jack said. Then he though about something and smiled. 'Does that mean we're mutants too? We can see in the dark.'

'Just you,' Scott said, returning the smile.

'Eeyup,' Jack said as his smile faded. 'Whatever it is, they'll be sensitive to bright lights. Won't they?'

'More so than us, or the deputies,' Scott said, nodding. 'The question is, what supplies are on hand to help us blind them?'

'Booze, probably,' Jack said. 'And any old oil or fuel that hasn't gotten burnt up or spilled.'

'Flares would be nice, too,' Scott said.

'We'll add it to the shopping list for tomorrow,' Jack said.

Privately, though, both Spartans doubted that they'd find exactly what it was they were after. The Bend had been occupied by people ever since the bombs had dropped some two-hundred years ago and it wasn't exactly a big place. Less than a square kilometre of area covered, most of it with buildings that barely rose above two or three stories, everything of value would have gotten swept up a long time ago.

But even with that being said, different items held different levels of value to different people, and when it came to weaponizing an object against an enemy there were few better at the task than a squad of Spartans.

 **0801 HOURS, OCTOBER 10, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ SOL SYSTEM (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE), PLANET EARTH (ERROR/SOURCE UNRELIABLE) \ STATE OF MISSOURI**

They assembled in the old parking lot for the motel the next morning and moved as one back towards Pop's Diner for breakfast, seeing the people of the Bend were early risers and still hard at work fortifying their town against attack with planks of wood or setting up crude early warning systems like cans on chains that would rattle when disturbed.

What caught Kilo's eye the most though was a quartet of Mister Handy robots gliding down the street and drifting towards houses at random to speak with the owners as they worked or took a short break, offering bottles of water to those that seemed overly fatigued from their labours. One of the multi-armed machines broke off to knock a can down the street after a trio of grubby looking kids accidentally kicked it over, joining them in their activity.

Scott let his gaze linger on them for a fraction longer before heading into the diner where they claimed their old booth, sitting in the exact same seats, and were served by the same waitress as before. She placed another urn of coffee on the table and came back with four more plates piled high with food. Like yesterday, their meal was made up of brahmin meat and pre-war staples, but prepared and arranged differently to accommodate the new time of day.

It was edible, which was really all the Spartans were concerned about, and they ate it happily enough as they made small talk or discussed potential changes to the plans they had made, stopping only when the four Mister Handy robots entered the diner.

Each was a faded cream white, rusted in places, with three eyes and three arms and a thruster, somehow still operating after all these years in post-apocalypse conditions. If the other diners were put off by their presence, they didn't show it. Instead, they openly greeted the machines like they were old friends and the robots dispersed in response, each going to a different group of patrons.

One angled towards the Spartans, or at least that was how it seemed, but it was actually going for their waitress as she approached with a fresh urn of coffee.

'Ah, Miss Maddison,' the Mister Handy said. 'How are you, this fine day?'

'I've been better, Andy,' the waitress said.

'Oh, yes, that accursed cult is coming, isn't it?' the robot said. 'When the moon doth glow, and river doth rage, a silent storm shall engulf us all.'

'Pretty much,' Maddison said.

'But this time is different, or so I've been told,' Andy said, swivelling to take in Kilo as they looked back at him. 'Four knights in not so shining armour, come to save us all.'

'That's the plan,' Scott said.

'Splendid!' Andy said. 'About time somebody did something about those rabble rousers.'

Then he held out his pincer and said, 'Allow me to introduce myself. I am Andy, leader of the Handy Handys, and I must say I am overjoyed to learn you and your friends are standing up to such a grave injustice! You have my thanks.'

Scott hesitated then grasped the proffered pincer, gingerly shaking it, and said, 'SPARTAN-B124, of Fireteam Kilo, but let's reserve thanks until after the battle's over.'

'Nonsense,' Andy said. 'You offering to help has done wonders for morale around here, young sir. That's reason enough for thanks.'

He turned to Maddison and said, 'Do take care of them, my dear. These four could very well be the salvation of River's Bend.'

'I will, Andy,' Maddison said. 'Now run along. I'm sure there are others in town that could do with your help more than me.'

'If that is your wish, milady.' Andy dipped forward, as though bowing. 'If I see young Ranger, I shall make sure he's properly hydrated and fed, and tell him is mother will give him hell if he isn't.'

'You do that,' Maddison said with a smile.

'Ma'am,' Andy said then, to the Spartans, 'Fireteam Kilo.'

And with that, he and the three other Mister Handy robots floated out of the diner back into the wider town to do whatever it was they were going to programmed to do. Scott and his team watched them as they went, each caught off guard by the personable demeanour of the machine compared to some of the other robots they had stumbled across during their time in the wastelands.

'Who are they?' Scott asked Maddison as she lingered by their table.

'The Handy Handys,' she said. 'They're some old unit of Mister Handy and Miss Nanny robots from before the war, supposedly part of a goodwill program the town mayor implemented shortly before the bombs dropped. For over two-hundred years they've patrolled the streets, keeping an eye on our kids when we can't or keeping the radroach population under control, or lending a hand to them that needs it.

'A blessing when the cult comes around, really, not that they've actually done anything to stop people from being taken.'

'Do they just wander all over town and check up on people?' Claire asked.

'Yeah,' Maddison said. 'They'll bring drinks or food, or supplies, or chat with people who live by themselves.'

'So they know who lives where, then?' Scott said.

'Yeah,' Maddison said again. 'If you're looking for a guide to take you all over town, they're the best bet. Just don't expect them to stay on task forever.'

'I won't,' Scott said. 'But it can't hurt to have some extensive local knowledge on hand, especially if we're looking for supplies.'

Maddison nodded and moved away from the table, towards another batch of customers, and the four Spartans went back to their meals and drinks as they digested this new piece of information. Already cogs were grinding around in their heads as they factored in how the four Mister Handy units could alter the battle against the cult, for better or for worse, and even though a word hadn't been said between them they all unanimously agreed that the robots were prime candidates for leaking intelligence to the cult, even unintentionally. They just needed to figure out how and put a stop to it.


End file.
